The Parts Men Play eBook

It seemed that the low voices of the others had been
going on for more than an hour when the sense of absolute
stillness told Selwyn that he must have fallen asleep
for an interval. He listened for their voices,
but nothing could be heard except the sleet driven
against the windows, and a far-away clock striking
the hour of two.

Wondering if his visitors were comfortable, he rose
from his bed, and creeping softly to the living-room
door, opened it enough to look in.

Smyth’s heavy breathing, not made any lighter
by his having his head completely covered by bed-clothes,
indicated that the futurist was in the realm of Morpheus.
Durwent was curled up cosily by the fire, the blankets
over him rising and subsiding slightly, conforming
to his deep, tranquil breaths.

In the light of the fire, and with the warm glow of
the skin caused by its heat and the refreshing bath,
the pallor of dissipation had left the boy’s
face. In the musing curve of his full-blooded
lips and in the corners of his closed eyes there was
just the suggestion of a smile—­the smile
of a child tired from play. There was such refinement
in the delicate nostrils dilating almost imperceptibly
with the intake of each breath, and such spiritual
smoothness in his brow contrasting with the glowing
tincture of his face, that to the man looking down
on him he seemed like a youth of some idyl, who could
never have known the invasion of one sordid thought.

A feeling of infinite compassion came over Selwyn.
He rebelled against the cruelty of vice that could
fasten its claws on anything so fine, when there was
so much human decay to feed upon.

The eyelids parted a little, and Selwyn stepped back
towards the door.

‘Hullo, Selwyn, old boy!’ murmured Durwent
dreamily. ’Is it time to get up?’

‘No,’ whispered Selwyn. ‘I
didn’t mean to wake you.’

Durwent smiled deprecatingly and reached sleepily
for the other’s hand. ‘It’s
awfully decent of you to take me in like this,’
he said.

There was a simplicity in his gesture, a child-like
sincerity in his voice, that made Selwyn accept the
hand-clasp, unable to utter the words which came to
his lips.

‘Selwyn,’ said Dick, keeping his face
turned towards the fire, ’are you likely to
see Elise soon?’

‘I hardly think so,’ said the American,
kneeling down and stirring the coals with the poker.

’If you do, please don’t tell her I’ve
come back. She thinks I’m in the Orient
somewhere, and if she knew I was joining up she would
worry. I suppose I shall always be “Boy-blue”
to her, and never anything older.’

Selwyn replaced the poker and sat down on a cushion
that was on the floor.